i did around 50~100 (my goal based on week not day, was 500 per week so i distributed 500 in 7 days)a day depending on how i felt, i think is important to make goals not so exact like.." ill do exactly 75 per day always" because every day is not the same why goals for that day should?.

Finishing the book it is not that much about speed but more about endurance so in order to keep my motivation i had to feel that i was making progress and if I set the bar too high there will be days that I would not feel like doing it and it sucks feeling that way , it demotivates me big time. Some days i did like.. 20~40 but and other days i even pushed to 110~130 it was really hard x.x i had to review a lot with anki. when i reached 1000 kanjis i took a week off to make sure i had solid foundations before learning the last 1042.

Even though i had some days without adding any new kanjis i tried to always review, that week after i learned the 1000 kanjis i took like 3 days w.o reviewing and i forgot like 50% of the last lessons i learned it was really annoying to review those lessons again as is it were the first time. I slowed down as i got closer to finishing it >: took me like 5 days to learn the last 200 kanjis somehow the numbers felt bigger as i got near the end was stressful i felt like i would never finish.

I`ve read some posts about people saying how learning 50+ 100+ kanjis a day is just impossible.. I`m not really anything out of the ordinary i just happen to be on vacations and i really got nothing to do , if you do 2hr a day and do 50 (just an example i actually never timed myself so i don't really know how much it took me to learn 50 .. thinking about the time didn't actually helped me concentrate) or do 4hrs to learn 100  there is no difference on memory skills. and i actually think i takes way more dedication to learn like 5 a day and keep going for  a year or two D: i would quit before reaching 100( i think humans are not made for handing long term goals).

My advice would be don't matter how many you do per day just do something because  for every day you stop you're making it harder and harder to get back at learning new ones.
I have a quote on the wall that motivated me
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving" -Albert Einstein

Just finished, for the second time. I'd completed it originally about two years ago, but stopped keeping up with reviews and studying when I started my first year of college. I restarted last Monday with the new edition, and finished about 30 minutes ago. I'm not sure what drove me to do it in 12 days, nor how I did it in that time*, and I don't recommend it... I probably should've just taken another three days on it.

I set a baseline for myself of 100/day, because that was the pace I did it originally. It fluctuated a lot, though. One day I added only about 10; the last two days, I added 800.**

As for how I added 100+ a day... I generally took things a chapter at a time. Depending on the length, and how long I'd been studying, I broke it up into sections; at the beginning of the day, I could take a 50-kanji chapter in one ugly jump, but at the end of the night, when my attention's been fried, I'd break it up into 2 25ish-character chunks, or 3 15ish-character chunks. I'd look at the stories for the kanji on the site, and spend a minute or two (at most) finding a story that seemed memorable enough, then copy the story into anki, and write out the kanji once while thinking or saying the story. If it had an odd stroke order, I might write it out a few more times.

Between getting stories and testing them, I would take a short break doing anything but studying (about ten times, this short break lasted a few hours ... but normally it was about 10-15 minutes). I would then go back and review in Anki in 10-card sets. I had it add cards throughout the day, instead of all at once; I also had it mix in the new cards with the old cards, so I usually would get about 1 old car to every 2 new cards. It seems to have worked out. My retention for most of the day would be between 80% and 90%; it would begin to drop off around 3 or 4 in the morning***.

My copy of RTK3 just got here this morning. I intend to go through it at at a much slower rate, maybe 40 a day; it's going to be a side thing, along with sentences and vocab.

tl;dr: Woooooo!

*I really recommend not doing this, especially if you haven't gone through it before. 100ish/day was tough, if doable, the first time through. I could see that stretching to maybe 150/day, but probably not 200/day.
** It might just be that I wish I had done an equal amount each day, instead of fluctuating like I did.
*** Don't do that, either, unless you intend to have the ugliest sleep schedule.

lardycake wrote:

tatercat wrote:

(snip)

You crazy person...I'm at 1250 right now going at 50 a day and this feels hardcore, though I have been doing other stuff like going to college. I do agree that it's probably possible to do 150 a day, but that would take some serious determination (and probably autism lol).

Good luck with RTK 3!

Oh, I could never have done this if I were taking classes right now. I had to take half the semester off for health reasons, and I figured that I may as well use the time to get back into things. If I were taking classes, I would have had to drop down to a 20-30/day pace. The next two months are a mad dash to learn as much as I can, so that I'll have a reasonable base by the time the spring semester starts.

Really, the people that can chug away at 10, 15, 25 a day are more impressive than me, because they're the people who have to really set aside some time for it, and they keep it up for months. They have way more determination and discipline and patience than I have. If I had to do it at 30/day, I'd be miserable, because it would feel like I wasn't making progress, and then I'd end up giving up.

I think what I mean is that slow and steady wins the race, especially when it comes to marathons, if the alternative is running as fast as you can until you pass out or something?

おめだとうございます！　

Last edited by Splatted (2011 November 20, 3:47 pm)

Well, I just finished Kanjidamage after 4 months. ;D (although in reality, I just used the anki deck and made up my own memonics for the meaning and onyomi.)

Sentences, here I come!

I felt like angels will come from the sky at the last reviewing moments! XD
Started on the 20th of July, and finished 5 minutes ago
It was a very fun experience for me, especially when I started noticing that the mysterious Kanjis that I'm seeing in the roads and on TV are getting less and less everyday
Now, I can hardly see any Kanji that I don't understand
Before finishing this book, I read a lot in this forum about how I'll be disappointed when once I finish the book coz I won't understand any written Japanese text...AND THAT WAS WRONG!
In fact, when I went to China 2 months ago (I that time I used to understand 1200 Kanjis only) I found that I could understand a fair amount of information!
In Japan, I can boldly say that I have a very good understanding of everything I read...even the scientific texts!
If there's one advice I would give to anybody: finish the text ASAP before studying anything else. I think that studying beginner books while fully memorizing the Kanjis will have a tremendous benefit since you get to learn the pronunciation of new words without allocating separate time for this part of Japanese language study...
Anyways, my plan from now on would include reviewing until the 1st of next month to decrease the Reviews Due, and then start KO2001 with a target finishing date of the 1 of May...
I'M A ROOOOOOOOOOOCKET MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN XD

halcyon_rave wrote:

lol awesome ^ ^

I can finally make my post in this thread!!1 Started late August and finished a few minutes ago.  やったああああああああああ！(wish I knew how to make the small 'あ’ xD) 

But yeah, from here, just mad sentences going for 100- 150 a day before school starts back up again... and can hopefully maintain that throughout the year. It gets real from here.

おめでとうございます！

lisbet wrote:

FINISHED FINISHED FINISHED

I started in the summer of 2010 and because of an immense grad school workload I am just now finishing. So believe me... this is a big moment, and my Christmas present to myself. I am just about to go toast myself with a cocktail of some sort.

*sniffle*


I know there's a supplement, I don't know whether I'll do RTK 3 yet. Right now that doesn't matter. Am gonna get my due cards under control and then move on from there

Good to hear more people succeeding. One word of advice here is, just maintain it and you'll be fine. Other than that, keep the good work coming!

halcyon_rave wrote:

lol awesome ^ ^

I can finally make my post in this thread!!1 Started late August and finished a few minutes ago.  やったああああああああああ！(wish I knew how to make the small 'あ’ xD) 

But yeah, from here, just mad sentences going for 100- 150 a day before school starts back up again... and can hopefully maintain that throughout the year. It gets real from here.

Congratulations, this is a big achievement ^^ (still remember how happy I felt when I finished )
You know that theres no L in japanese, but the L key actually has a purpose.... to make letters "Lower"
Just press L before typing the あ　and it will become ぁ
やったあぁぁぁぁ~

Finished about a day or two ago and now moving onto the supplements attached to the Anki deck. Of course, for some of them its nominal completion since I"ll be reviewing every day until I have that sense of memory and that for others it was partial rote. But it's a happy feeling knowing that a large chunk of it is at least over.

Toast yourselves with your beverage of choice and do something funny with the book in celebration. I recommend letting a small animal nap on top of it.

Congrats amillerchip (and everyone)!
You put 213 reviews as punishment, lol (better get used to 500+).
And don't wait till February, start Japanese as soon as the reviews calm down (150 a day is one hour and leaves you plenty of time to study).

Last edited by EratiK (2011 December 31, 12:43 pm)